


take the reins fucker, we're going in

by Kirschli_Kuchen



Series: Friends (maybe soon with benefits) [1]
Category: The Losers (2010)
Genre: Fluff, Getting to Know Each Other, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Canon, Pre-Slash, Sharing a Bed, this is what I'm calling "Army Domestic"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-17
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2019-03-20 07:13:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13712592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kirschli_Kuchen/pseuds/Kirschli_Kuchen
Summary: How Jake and Carlos became friends.





	take the reins fucker, we're going in

Alvarez stares down at the letter in abject silence. How silence can be anything other than fucking silent Jensen hasn’t figured out yet, but he’s willing to learn.

Jensen glances down and catches the sender. “Oooh! You’ve been Johnson’d!” he exclaims making Alvarez twitch and look up at him. Jensen grins, “That might be a new record. How long have you been here?” he asks, rhetorically, and turns around “Hey guys! The new guy’s been Johnson’d!”

“Already?” Pooch says as he rounds the corner, leaning his elbow on Jensen’s shoulder even though Jensen’s taller and it looks really uncomfortable.

Rogue is the next one coming in, silent. After only a day of the new guy Rogue’s still in intimidation mode, cleaning his nails with the biggest knife he’d got lying around (basically a short sword) and staring. Only _just_ refraining from marking his territory by pissing on everything.

“Oh?” says the last Loser coming in hip checking Rogue because their kitchen is small and they’re cluttering the entrance. Clay holds his hand out expectantly for Alvarez.

Alvarez reluctantly gives him his disciplinary letter. Jake shakes Pooch off and sidles over to read over Clay’s shoulder.

Clay looks it over. Jensen’s a faster reader than Clay (he also knows the general layout of Johnson’s letters best) so he finishes first.

“Wow! I don’t know that one,” Jensen exclaims moving back a step and shaking his hand out, ““Disrespecting a superior officer”? What _did_ you do?”

“Oh, I know what that is!” Pooch says, from his place at Clay’s other shoulder, “That’s what he used on my first “Dear Dick Letter”.”

Clay finally raises his head, “Means he was fucking around base in civvies and got mad when you didn’t salute him, right?”

“That one, yeah.” Pooch says, wry smile on his face.

Clay makes a little humming sound, “How long have you been here exactly, solider?” he asks Alvarez.

“Yesterday, oh-eight-hundred.” Alvarez says. He sounds pained.

Jensen pipes in, “That’s twenty-two hours and-” he looks at his watch, “Twelve minutes exactly.”

Clay looks long and hard at Alvarez and while Alvarez might not shrink back or make any overt noises or movement, he looks mighty uncomfortable to Jensen. Or maybe he’s just projecting.

Clay’s face breaks out in a smile, “Congrats, loser.” he says, crumbling up the letter in his hands, “That’s a new record!”

Rogue snorts and walks out, Clay throws the crumpled up letter in the garbage and follows him.

Pooch grins, “Even Jensen took a whole day to piss Johnson off.” he throws over his shoulder as he too walks out, “Good going, new guy!”.

“Hey I take offense!” Jensen yells at his back, “I pissed him off in my first five minutes!” he turns to Alvares, “Internal takes longer on Sundays.” he adds conspiratorially.

Alvarez treats him to a raised eyebrow, now that he knows he’s out of the frying pan.

Jensen makes an inviting gesture and leads him out of the kitchen into the bunk room. The other Losers have since vacated the premises. Probably playing dead man’s bluff in Clay’s office.

“Okay so Johnson’s, like his name suggests, a giant dick,” Jensen starts and Alvarez makes a fun sound. Jensen turns around just in time to see the smile die, “You probably worked that one out yourself.” he says as he sits down on his bunk, “He likes writing letters calling for disciplinary action for the smallest of offenses, like for example not saluting when there’s no way to tell his rank.”

Alvarez sits down on the bed next to him after a moment of indecision, “We call them “Dear Dick Letters”, you know? Like “Dear John Letters”,” Alvarez makes a questioning sound and Jensen looks over from where he’d started to type something on his laptop. “Ah, okay, so a “Dear John Letter” is a breakup letter. As if anyone still wrote those, huh?” Jensen waits for Alvarez to nod and takes a moment to gather his thoughts, absently tapping away at his laptop, “Uh, so anyway, everybody gets one and as long as they’re not calling for a court martial the Colonel ignores them. You’re good.

“Questions?” Jensen adds, not really expecting any. He’s heard Alvarez speak exactly five words since he came in yesterday.

“How many?” Alvarez asks, Jensen’s head snaps up, blinking. Cougar inclines his head towards him.

“How many letters I’ve gotten?” Alvarez nods, “Oh, I haven’t kept tally.” Jensen looks to the ceiling and bites his lip, “Considering I’ve been stationed on this base for two years with about one-hundred-and-ninety free days total, bit less than half spent on base.” Jensen looks back down at Alvarez, “Uh, around one-twenty?”

Alvarez makes an undignified sound and laughs. This time Jensen can see him smile.

He grins back.

  


So Jensen’s figured a couple of things out about Cougar in the month he’s known him now.

First and foremost is that he’s called Cougar and not Alvarez.

Jensen likes that fact a lot.

While he might not talk as much as Pooch or even Rogue, he’s got a wicked sense of humor hidden behind his facade. Jensen only has to lead in to a joke and boom, Cougar will fill the rest in, always making Jensen laugh.

It’s weird that only Pooch seems to clue in.

Rogue has eased off on the territorial posturing but he still thinks that Cougar’s only qualities are being quiet as a grave and being amazingly deadly.

Well, Jensen gives fuck all on the first part but the deadliness is something Jensen can get behind. Cougar showed them all very clearly just how deadly he is on the first mission they took him on. He took out more people than the rest of them combined.

Competence has always been one of Jensen’s weak spots.

Another thing he’s figured out is that Cougar’s a pretty good cook. Not as good as Pooch, but then few people are. Pooch is a god in the kitchen after all. But Pooch’s also in the bad habit of holding his food hostage if people have been naughty and let’s be honest, they’re all naughty all the time. So they get his food approximately none of the time.

Cougar’s not as stingy with his talents, at least not where Jensen’s concerned. Jensen appreciates that. He appreciates that a whole lot.

Jensen likes to sit in the kitchen while people work their magic at the stove. Mostly it’s so he’ll know when they’re finished and can get the best bits.

Today Cougar’s making milk braised carnitas and they smell heavenly, even though the glance he’s caught around his computer screen looked less than appetizing. He’s also making homemade tortillas. For those he’s MacGuyver’d himself a flatiron out of some books that look vaguely familiar, but Jensen’s not going to ask where he got them. He’ll just make sure they’re well hidden if Cougar leaves them out.

Jensen’s stomach rumbles and Cougar looks over for a second, eyebrow raised to see just how pathetic he looks. Apparently pathetic enough that Cougar throws Jensen one of the whole ass tomatoes he’s cutting up right now.

Jensen moans and bites in just as Pooch steps through the door. Pooch makes a face.

“Ugh, raw tomatoes,” he says with as much disdain in his voice as Jensen puts into his tirades about Apple.

Cougar makes a noise and Jensen can’t really tell whether it’s good or bad, but it probably doesn’t really matter.

Pooch gets two beers from the fridge and walks back out. Jensen shrugs, more food for him.

“Hot?” Cougar asks a couple of minutes later. When Jensen looks over he holds up a chili and Jensen nods.

It’s another hour before Cougar sets a plate of food before him, sitting down with a portion himself.

Jensen doesn’t touch the food until after Cougar’s finished praying.

  


It’s a wonder they’ve let Jensen out already. Rogue standing forebodingly in the doorstep probably helped speed it up. As did Cougar sitting wide legged beside his bed, watching TV with him and fixing every nurse and doctor with a death glare if they came what he deemed as too close.

Overall it probably wasn’t a very happy five workdays for the hospital staff.

In the end they’d given Pooch (the most approachable of the lot) a long list of what to do with Jensen’s injuries. Considering he only got a couple broken bones and bruised ribs it mostly comes down to letting him rest and keeping him off the breaks.

At least his hands escaped unscathed. So he can type wherever he wants, as long as Cougar lugs around a chair for him. To Jensen’s continued surprise Cougar actually does just that.

That’s mostly how he ends up sitting behind their barracks in the balmy night air.

Somewhere he lost track of his laptop so it’s just him and Cougar looking out at the vast expanse of the desert surrounding the base.

Cougar takes out a pack of Luckies and motions to him. Jake nods and Cougar puts two smokes in his mouth and lights them up. The first drag slowly curls out of his mouth as he leans down to hand Jake the second one.

Jake could stare at the smoke wisping up through the air for hours.

Cougar shifts and leans his hip against the back of the chair.

On a night like this, even Jake doesn’t see much sense in filling the silence with chatter.

He watches the wisps of his and Cougar’s smokes intermingling in the air and slowly but surely drifts off.

  


“Did you know Tutankhamun had been named Tutankhaten first?” Jake says as they’re getting ready for bed.

Cougar’s claimed first shower but he stops in the door, hat on the nightstand, stripped down to his underwear to listen.

Jake perks up, “So his dad, Akhenaten, was this religious nut who only wanted to worship the sun disk, Aten. He pretty much outlawed all other gods and called his son Tutankhaten – “living image of Aten”. You with me so far?” Jake shucks his jeans and just sits down on his bed in his skivvies.

Cougar nods, leaning against the doorway.

“People didn’t like having to betray their gods, so when his dad died, he had to win them back to his side. He did this in part by changing his name to Tutankhamun – “living image of Amun”. Amun being the central figure of the Egyptian gods basically like Zeus or Odin. He gave the people their gods back and they loved him for it.”

Cougar raises his eyebrows, probably to say: ‘Oh, that’s interesting, Jensen.’ just as him shutting the bathroom door behind him means: ‘You can tell me more when I get back.’

So Jake waits for his turn at the shower and after he’s finished Cougar’s already all snug in bed so no more story time.

Jake shrugs to himself and pairs his boxers with a long sleeve shirt and a pair of thick socks to complete his irresistible jammer look. He tucks the blanket in tight around himself and fucks around on his phone for a bit. Hey, he never had an easy time falling asleep when he is cold so he’s just warming the bed up for a bit. It has nothing at all to do with binge watching Red vs Blue. Again.

Around halfway through the first season he has to take a break from his in-ears so he fucks around with balloon monkeys instead for a hot minute.

It’s then that he hears a soft whimpering sound. Maybe it’s his stomach acting up after the nice Mexican lunch they’d had but then he notices that the sound isn’t coming from him. It’s coming from Cougar’s side of the room.

Jake stills.

He looks over.

Cougar’s curled on his side, facing Jake, clutching his blanket to his chest, rolled in as tight as he’ll go.

Jake swallows.

“Cougar, psst! Hey, Cougs!” he hiss whispers. When that doesn’t work (and since when didn’t it? Cougar slept as light as anything) Jake hesitantly and quietly gets up and walks over. He knows how soldiers react to being woken by touch so he wisely stays just out of Cougar’s reach.

“Cougar,” he says, now at a normal level and repeats his name louder and louder. When that doesn’t work he tries Cougar’s given name.

That finally gets his eyes to snap open and a hand with a gun to fly out, pointed slightly to Jensen’s left.

“Hey Cougs,” Jake says again, hands up, trying to be as nonthreatening as he can get his 6 foot self to be. The gun snaps to his chest.

Jake goes very still.

Cougar slowly slides his feet down to the ground.

After a minute or so of tense silence, Cougar’s eyes clear and he hurriedly puts the gun down and its safety on. Cougar makes a noise and turns his head down and away from Jakes gaze, hands coming up to tug at his hair.

“Lo siento.” Cougar says, “Jake,” he looks back up at somewhere just to the left of Jake’s face, “I am so sorry.”

Jake’s hands come up automatically to calm and to soothe at Cougar’s tone of voice and he lets them get away from him. Gently detangling Cougar’s fingers from his hair and then coming down to rest on Cougar’s shoulders. Cougar doesn’t flinch. He does nothing. Jake takes that as a tentative sign to continue.

“Hey buddy,” Jake says, head bent to catch Cougar’s eyes, “No harm done.”

Cougar’s gaze slides away from Jake’s, so he gets down on his knees on the dirty motel floor.

“No, really,” he says, treading one of his hands through Cougar’s hair, finally making their eyes meet, “I’m fine.” Jake smiles, “I can handle a scare, alright?”

Cougar doesn’t exactly nod, but right now Jake will take anything he can get.

Jake inclines his head, “You wanna talk about it?”

Cougar shakes his head. It’s not enough to dislodge Jake’s hand so Jake decides to take that as a good sign.

“You want a hug?” Jake asks, not exactly as a gag, but to lighten the mood a little. By the widening of Cougar’s eyes he might have missed that mark by miles.

But after a second Cougar nods, making Jake freeze mentally for just a moment. Not enough for Cougar to notice, but enough for Jake to maybe have a good think about that later.

“Okay, c’mere.” he says as he gently pulls Cougar’s head down by the hand still buried in his hair to rest it on his shoulder. Jake’s other hand sneaks around Cougar’s waist, stranding them in a weird bent over half-hug, until Cougar makes a noise deep in his throat and slides down off the bed and into Jake’s lap.

Jake freezes again, but doesn’t really have time to notice that himself, because Cougar starts shaking and something wet is spreading on his shoulder. And oh, Cougar’s crying and Jake feels like crying too because he hasn’t held a crying person since the last time he and his sister had to see the worse half of their biological input and aren’t those just some fun memories?

So Jake doesn’t have time to freeze or to really think. He runs his hand up and down Cougar’s back, the other stroking his hair, whispering general platitudes into his hair, about how everything is going to be alright, hush now, it’ll be fine, because Jake doesn’t know Cougar’s demons and doesn’t know how to calm him better.

Jake doesn’t know how long it takes for Cougar to stop shaking, but when he does Jake gently pulls his face away from his shoulder and looks him in the still leaking eyes.

“Bed?” he says, taking Cougar’s head in his hands and softly running his thumbs over the tear tracks.

Cougar’s mouth opens for a moment and then he nods. So he pulls himself up keeping his hand on Jake’s shoulder. Both of Jake’s legs are asleep so he’s slow in following. Cougar silently helps him up onto the bed and curls in close under the blanket.

Jake sneaks one arm under Cougar’s head and the other around his waist.

They sleep.


End file.
